


However We Got Here, Wherever We're Going

by LandOfMistAndSecrets



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Friends, Crimson Flower Route, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, M/M, PTSD-like Trauma, Panic Attacks, Post-Time Skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 02:43:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20382376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LandOfMistAndSecrets/pseuds/LandOfMistAndSecrets
Summary: War is ugly. So what does it say about you if your side started it, and, let's be honest, is going to end it too -- whatever the cost.(Or, Linhardt hates fighting, but he especially hates it when the people dying are, you know, former friends. Spoilers up to Black Eagles/Crimson Flower Chapter 15, and Flayn & Linhardt's support line.)





	However We Got Here, Wherever We're Going

**Author's Note:**

> There is some mention of major character deaths here that are possible in Crimson Flower Ch 15 (neither Linhardt nor Caspar dies, this is a fluff piece with an angsty backdrop, please enjoy.)

Linhardt sat with his back against the brick, warm still from the sun, radiating heat through his cloak and tunic and skin and bones. He had his knees pulled up to his chest, his arms wrapped around them, and if he tucked his face down and squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated _very_ hard, he could almost pretend that he was somewhere else. Some_when_ else. Five years younger, when his most pressing worries had been finding secluded napping spots to skip class in without Edelgard or the professor finding him out. 

Almost. The acrid, lingering smoke stench was entirely out of place with that fantasy, as were the coughs and gasps and groans of the wounded, staggering in and out of the building at his back. They entered with open wounds and exited with bloody bandages, when they were lucky enough to exit on their own two feet at all. He really needed to get back inside. Manuela could hardly be expected to handle the sheer numbers, short handed as she was. 

But no one paid him any mind, and it was so much easier to curl up here and pretend that none of this was happening at all. The moment he went back inside, he’d be caught up in everyone else’s pain and misery and horror, _responsible_ for some of it, even. He’d be busy tending to burns and scrapes and bloody wounds, stomach churning, sweat rolling down his back while he struggled to keep up. Regardless of his efforts, the work never lessened a bit.

And so he tucked his face against his knees and breathed deep, eyes closed, the bricks warm at his back. Easier this way. Better. 

To call it dozing would have been generous. He remained perfectly and painfully aware of the bodies marching on around him, the shouts and whispers and occasional hitching sob, the creak of overburdened cart wheels turning past him on the main path from the gate, the influx of cooler air as the sun sank slowly and inevitably down into the mountains. He knew he should pick himself up and at least retreat to his room, if he intended to be useless, but there was a sort of finality in that decision he couldn’t bear to face. As long as he sat here, he could pretend that he intended to get up. He could tell himself that any moment now, he’d feel rested and able to do his duty, to help mitigate their losses, to help bear some of the human burden, to help manage the uglier realities of Edelgard’s war. 

He remained there until his muscles grew stiff and then painful and then numb. The march of bodies along the walk lessened, but there were too many wounded for it to cease entirely. The air went from pleasantly warm to cool to noticeably chill, and he shivered and pulled his legs tighter against him. 

And then: Heavy footfalls, the rattle and clank of armor, and a familiar voice. 

“_There_ you are,” said his best and oldest friend, in aggrieved tones that indicated he must have been looking for some time. 

Linhardt peered up at him. Oh, yes. He seemed rather exasperated, judging by his pose and posture -- arms akimbo, hands tightened into fists -- not to mention the little wrinkle between his brows, the tight creases in his forehead, the downward pull of his mouth. A dark smear stood out on his face, curving from behind his ear to halfway down his chin. Linhardt studied that, noting absently that five years ago, he probably would have retched at the sight. 

Simpler times. 

Now, he only sighed and let his eyes fall closed once more. “You’ve got blood on your face,” he informed him, very clinically. Professional. 

“Huh?” Caspar’s armor clanked whenever he moved, which suited him well, because never in all his life had he ever done anything quietly. 

“Don’t,” Linhardt advised him. He didn’t need to open his eyes to know what he’d see: Caspar, rubbing his grubby palms all over his face, as though it would help at all. “It’s dried on, now. You’ll need soap and water. Is that… I hope it’s not yours.”

“Well, I hope it _is,_” Caspar muttered. _Clank._ The sound of his shoulders sagging, his hands dropping back to his sides. “Who wants to walk around with someone else’s blood on their face?” 

Linhardt let out a helpless, despairing sort of laugh. Who, indeed? “Fine,” he said. “What I meant to say, I suppose, was that I hope you aren’t hurt.” He lifted his chin, cracking his eyes open just a fraction. Caspar’s brow was furrowed still, his expression severe, but there was something else in his look Linhardt couldn’t quite put his finger on. Which was rather unnerving, because Caspar had always been an open book, all the years he’d known him. 

“I was going to say the same to you,” Caspar said. “I saw you, you know, when… when Flayn --” 

He sat up straighter, a sick little twist roiling through his guts. He held up a hand. Caspar, mercifully, snapped his mouth shut. 

“Let’s not talk about Flayn,” he said. “Or Seteth. Catherine. Cyril. Rhea…” he pressed his palms against his eyelids, hard, hard enough that his head ached at the pressure and little white spots began to bloom across his vision. “The professor will take care of everything. And what she doesn’t, Lady Edelgard certainly will. So let’s not talk about it, Caspar, please?” 

More clanking and shifting about. Linhardt tried and failed to imagine what he was doing, now, what those sounds could possibly mean. When they ceased, it left things suspiciously still and quiet between them, and it was the puzzle of that more than any real desire to open his eyes again that made him look. 

Caspar was crouched down in front of him, his face at a level with his, eyes wide, lips pressed together into thin little lines. He was biting them, Linhardt thought, like it was the only possible way he could keep them shut. 

He couldn’t help it. He snorted quietly and ducked his head, pressing a palm against his forehead. “I didn’t mean you shouldn’t talk at all,” he clarified. 

Caspar exhaled in a great big noisy _whoosh_, and Linhardt wrinkled his nose as his stale, hot breath hit him square in the face. “Thank goodness,” he sighed, and then he leaned in closer, of all things, narrowing his eyes. “I heard you were at the infirmary, but I didn’t know if you were hurt or just, you know,” he waved his hand and wiggled his fingers the way he always did when he spoke of magic, “Helping. Or if you were really hurt! But it’s… it’s so busy here, y’know? I didn’t want to get in the way. So I thought I’d just wait for you to come back, only then it got dark and you never did! And I was so in my own head about it, too! I mean, I skipped _dinner._ That’s not like me, is it? I really --” 

“Caspar,” Linhardt sighed. 

“Yeah?” 

“The _point,_” he said, raising his brows. In truth, he didn’t mind Caspar’s babbling, but history proved that if he just let him continue on however he liked, fairly soon he’d be five subjects afield and have long forgotten the original point. And, well. He rather wanted to hear the point of this particular speech, he found. There was a curious swelling sensation in his chest that only seemed to worsen as he considered the possibilities, but the feeling wasn’t… entirely objectionable. In fact, he was sort of chasing after it, wasn’t he? 

And babbling as well, only in his thoughts, instead of aloud. 

Caspar, heedless, only bobbed his head and smiled in that genuine, disarming way he had. “Right,” he said. “The point, Linhardt, is that I was worried about you!” He wrinkled his nose and frowned, running his wide-eyed gaze up and down in a way that made Linhardt feel oddly self conscious. He must look terrible, really. He’d just been on a battlefield only hours before. “Are you okay?” 

What a question. 

He considered it carefully.

Physically, yes, all was in order. No major injuries. No cause for concern. Some aches and pains, yes. Sore muscles that would heal on their own with rest. A few bruises, perhaps. Superficial scrapes and scratches… 

“Linhardt,” Caspar said. He had never been good with long stretches of silence.

“I’m fine,” Linhardt replied, and nevermind the little wince as he said it. “Just fine. In fact, I was having a lovely nap, before you came along and ruined it.” 

“Uh huh,” Caspar rolled his eyes. “Well, if you aren’t hurt…” he stood up, groaning as he did so. Yes, he should have been feeling the fatigue from his earlier efforts, now. He fought with an axe, after all. Terribly inefficient weapon. It had to take its toll. 

His head felt strange. As though someone had scooped out all of his brains and replaced them with feather down. 

“Are you going, then?” he asked, and perhaps the disappointment he felt was part of that same strangeness. “You should go wash your face.” 

“Uh huh,” Caspar repeated, and then he reached down, holding out his hand. Linhardt stared at it blankly. He’d taken off his gauntlets, at some point, but his hands were far from clean. He found himself considering with especial detail the little half moons of grime beneath his fingernails. Dirt, most likely. 

Flayn’s fingernails had looked like that, too. He remembered the way that detail had stood out, most likely because her skin had been so very… pale. Only, there had been those little crescent indents in her palms, too, where she’d clenched her fists so hard she’d made them bleed, and so the dirt beneath her nails, logically, hadn’t been dirt at all, and he had no idea what to do with that knowledge at all, only that he had it. 

Hadn’t he thought, once, that all knowledge was worthwhile?

“Come on,” Caspar whined at him, jolting him out of that strange spiral of thoughts. It wasn’t as though he’d never seen a body, before. What was the matter with him, really? “I’m not leaving you here, like this. If you want to nap, you should at least do it in your own bed.” 

“No, I…” he frowned, even as he reached out. “I can’t do that. I have to help Manuela. The infirmary is rather busy, you know, with all of the… the, well...” The moment Caspar pulled him to his feet, he was sweating, suddenly, which made no sense at all, because he wasn’t warm, and he certainly didn’t feel feverish. Even so, a cold chill rolled its way down his back and settled at the base of his spine, and when he tried to speak again the breath just sort of left his lungs in a pathetic little gasp and he bent over, shivering. 

Distantly, as though observing his own behavior from beyond his body, he hoped he wasn’t about to vomit into his own lap. It probably wouldn’t have been the _most_ embarrassing thing Caspar had witnessed him do in all their long years of history together, but surely it would have sat somewhere close to the top of that list. 

For his own part, Caspar clasped his hand tight throughout, and then, his face the very picture of shocked concern, he stepped closer and looped his arm around his shoulders, holding him close. Embarrassing as it was, Linhardt staggered against him, back bowed, nostrils flared, breathing deeply in and out until the nausea began to lessen and the chills began to pass.

“Yeah, I don’t think you’re really in any sort of shape to be helping Manuela with anything, right now,” Caspar said, astute as ever. “Hey… are you _sure_ you’re all right?” Just like him, really, to ask questions with such obvious answers. 

“Just tired,” he mumbled in response. “A bit dizzy.” He laughed, then, low and disgusted. “I had a rather long day. Didn’t you?” 

“...Yeah,” Caspar agreed, nodding perhaps too vehemently, nearly knocking their foreheads together. “You need me to carry you? I can do that, you know! No sweat.” 

“Absolutely not,” Linhardt said, though if he was being honest, it was actually rather tempting. Even if Caspar’s armor was hard and uncomfortable and would undoubtedly jab and poke him as he jostled about on his back. He did, however, tighten his grip on Caspar’s hand. Not a subtle signal, but that was how it had to be, when one was dealing with Caspar. 

Mercifully, he seemed to get the message loud and clear. Mostly. He grinned up at him, and then he turned and pulled him none too gently along behind him, like an exuberant child leading its caretaker to the sweets stall at the market. Somewhere in the distance, a less than sober sounding contingent of imperial soldiers started up a victory chant, and were met with tired laughter and a smattering of shouts and cheers. 

How Caspar could smile like he did after a day like today, Linhardt would never know -- but that was just Caspar, and he could never have held it against him. Those imperial soldiers, though… 

He tried and failed to put it out of his mind. 

They just didn’t understand. 

*

True to his word, Caspar took him back to his room. It was quieter there, at the far end of the dormitory, and when they stumbled through the entryway together and Caspar slammed the door behind them, well, he couldn’t hear any sounds from outside at all. Which suited him just fine. Even the smoke smell in the air seemed less, inside.

“Jeez, Linhardt,” Caspar said, stepping gingerly around several stacks of papers and more than a few open books scattered across the floor. “Your room is even more of a mess than mine. How do you even work like this, anyway?” 

He blinked down at the display. Crests and theories and other meaningless nonsense. What did understanding such a fundamental structure of the world as it was now matter, when Edelgard was going to burn it all down, anyhow? When the war was over and they had presumably won -- he had to believe they’d win -- would anyone even remember Crests had existed, once, by the time she was through? Would she even _allow_ for their continued study? The best way to make something disappear, after all, was hardly to condone a deeper understanding of it. 

“I don’t,” he explained, staring helplessly at it all. “None of this was ever work, obviously.” He tilted his head and glanced sideways at Caspar. “You’re still holding my hand,” he pointed out. 

Predictably, Caspar startled visibly and flushed an entirely too appealing shade of pink. Less predictably, rather than shaking him off and stepping back and holding his hands up like he’d never intended to even touch him at all, Caspar just tightened his hold on him, set his jaw in a familiar, stubborn sort of bulldog frown, and glared. 

“Excuse me,” he said, holding up their linked hands like he was presenting evidence in an investigation, “But I think this sort of thing goes _two_ ways, last I checked! Maybe you’re the one that’s still holding my hand, Linhardt, huh? I’m just here being real nice and helpful and, you know, _supportive_, even, and you’re just gonna -- you wanna let go? Do it yourself!” 

It was endearing, Linhardt decided. So endearing, in fact, that for a moment his body forgot that it was suffering on the tail end of the single most horrifying day of his life, thus far, and the tight twisting in his belly replaced itself momentarily with a lighter and far more welcome sort of nervous anticipation, instead. 

“Very well,” he said. “If you’re going to be obstinate about it, never mind.” And he squeezed Caspar’s hand and strode heedless across the room, tugging him along, kicking aside books and papers and all the rest of that meaningless rubbish as he went. Caspar followed with a little surprised yelp, practically hopping about after him in a vain attempt to avoid further disturbing the mess Linhardt was making of his own research. Even more endearing, that, really. Caspar really did try his best, when he remembered he ought to. 

“Don’t bother,” Linhardt advised him, but their rooms weren’t exactly what one might describe as _large_, and so by the time he said it they were already at another impasse, standing at the side of his bed. “It’s all garbage, anyway.” 

Caspar screwed his face up like he’d just bitten full tilt into a lemon. “It’s not garbage,” he insisted. “It’s your research! You were so interested in all that stuff! Weren’t you, uh…” he bit his lip. He still had that smear of blood on his face, Linhardt noted. He wondered if he’d hit his head. Or rather, _been_ hit, right there, just beneath the back of his ear. The shape and angle of it did imply it, and head wounds were always so disgustingly, notoriously bloody. It fit. More precious, useless knowledge, he supposed. Lovely. “Cethleann, right?” Caspar went on, heedless, as usual. “You were all in on something about Cethleann, and that’s your crest, so I’m sure whatever you were, uh, reading about was probably really relevant, you know, to you, so…” Caspar turned his big, pretty blue eyes up at him, like he was beseeching him to say something, anything, to put him out of his misery. Ah, he was trying so hard. 

Impulsively, Linhardt reached up and grabbed him none too gently by the ear. 

“Hey!” Caspar gasped, jerking back. He let go of his hand, finally, and flung his arms up as though to ward him off, but Linhardt didn’t so much as flinch. “Ow, okay, Linhardt, what the hell?!” 

Linhardt made an impassive sound, turning Caspar’s face with an insistent tug at the shell of his ear, which was, he couldn’t help but notice, turning just as pink as the rest of his face, now. Interesting. 

More interesting still was the purplish bruise spreading out behind that ear, fanning out around an ugly looking but clearly shallow sort of scrape that ran into his hairline, obscuring the rest with matted blood and hair. Disgusting, really. He inhaled through his nose and out through his mouth, reminding himself that even shallow head wounds bled like no one’s business. It was their worst quality by far. 

“Knock it off,” Caspar snapped at him, and he must have realized what he was looking at, because he made an actually effort to shake him off. And succeeded, of course. Caspar was a great deal stronger than him, after all. “Come on, what’s gotten into you? It’s fine. I’m not gonna go bother anyone with a little scrape like that, so don’t you start!” 

A blow like that could kill a man, he thought, distantly. It really could. Easily. Caspar’s skull was thicker than most, sure, but bone was bone and steel would win out, every time. He couldn’t even fathom what sort of hairs’ breadth close call might result in an injury like that. His mouth was very dry, all of a sudden. Strange. 

He stepped back, dropping his hands with a little shrug. “You should at least clean it out,” he said. “It’ll get infected. Also, you could use a bath anyhow. You smell awful.” It was true, at least in part -- he smelled like sweat and blood and battle, which were all inherently awful things, but he also just smelled like _Caspar_, which he had come to find rather embarrassingly unobjectionable, against all better sense. Of course, he didn’t need to know that. 

“Don’t you turn around and make this about me,” Caspar said. “I’m fine, I told you. Here, look. Just -- I’ll just…” he cast a helpless look around. Linhardt almost felt sorry for him. “...Get some rest, okay? I can’t believe I’m having to even say that to you. You never need anyone to give you _permission_ to sleep.” He crossed his arms, glaring again. 

“Okay,” Linhardt said, and then, with a performative little shrug, he pitched forward face-first onto the bed. He didn’t bother with the covers, or even with the pillows, or especially with the books scattered over the mattress that now jabbed him rather painfully with their corners. He just wriggled up so he was mostly atop the thing and curled around himself and turned to face the wall, putting Caspar safely at his back.

There was a beat or two of silence, and then, predictably, a much aggrieved heaving sigh. 

“You know what? That’s good enough for me,” Caspar said, and Linhardt couldn’t help the stupid little smile that stole onto his face at the absolute despairing quality of his voice. It really was endearing, Caspar trying to play the doting caretaker. “Good _night_, Linhardt,” he grumbled. 

“Good night,” Linhardt said, and he expected to hear heavy footfalls and clanking armor as Caspar let himself out. And he got them both in short order, sure, but from the sound of it, Caspar wasn’t making his way toward the door. Instead, it sounded like he was just… walking around his room, aimlessly? 

Papers shuffled, and there was a little thud from the shelves at the back, and … 

“Are you cleaning my room?” Linhardt said, incredulously, still speaking directly to the wall in front of him. 

“Just… just, you know, picking up a little?” Caspar said, sounding of all things guilty, like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “If you don’t care about this stuff anymore anyway --” 

“Caspar,” Linhardt said, very patiently. 

Another thud. A book being placed with a little too much force, he thought. “Yeah, I know. I’m going, okay? I just, I didn’t want to leave you here until you were asleep, I guess, and that doesn’t usually take _long_, so --” 

He twisted about onto his back, grimaced, and kicked a wayward tome from where it had been digging into the back of his knee onto the floor. “Caspar.” 

“_What?_” 

He opened his mouth to say any number of very intelligent, reasonable things, things like _go wash your face_ or _you need to rest, too_ or _stop worrying about me, it’s making me nervous._ Instead, what came out was, “I wasn’t investigating the crest. Cethleann. It wasn’t about the crest. Not exactly. It was about her, the Saint, the historical figure, the … the _person._” He swallowed, hard. He didn’t know why he was bothering, with this. It didn’t matter. It hadn’t then, and even if it had, it certainly didn’t now. “The person, Caspar. She was a person. Do you know how difficult it is to find first hand accounts of her appearance?” 

“Her… appearance?” 

“What she looked like.” 

“I -- oh, come on! I know what you _mean_, I just… you were interested in that? Saint Cethleann’s _appearance?_” 

“She was said to have been short of stature,” he said, his mind already wheeling back over the details he’d painstakingly pulled from various historical accounts. “Many accounts remark on her beauty, but these specify a somewhat childlike nature to it. A beauty of innocence, as it were. One account notes in particular that her face was, oh, round and luminous, demanding protection from all who beheld it…” 

“But she was a warrior, right? I mean, not _warrior_ warrior, not like me, she was a priestess, I know that. But she fought in a war! She was probably really strong, you know, at least with her magic, and… actually,” he said, and his voice brightened like he’d just thought of something brilliant. “You know, I bet she was a lot like you. At least, on the battlefield, huh? Hey, isn’t there a statue of her in the --” 

“She had green hair,” Linhardt said. “Sea green, with the most striking eyes to match. Most interestingly, it was said to be styled rather girlishly, in great voluminous twists about either side of that round, pretty face she supposedly had.” 

“Oh.”

The silence hung heavy, then, though Linhardt swore he could almost hear Caspar think. 

“You… you read that, huh?” he said, eventually, weakly. He must have seen it, too. Seen exactly what Linhardt had seen, when he’d first come across that passage by chance. 

And if even _Caspar_ could put it together… 

“I always thought she was a little strange,” Linhardt said. “Not in a bad way. A very good way, actually. She was interesting. I never found her boring. Not once. There aren’t many people I can really say that about, Caspar.” 

“You asked me not to talk about her,” Caspar reminded him. He sounded miserable, and Linhardt couldn’t help but feel a little vindictively glad. Someone else had to bear a little bit of this weight, he thought, because otherwise he was starting to think it must just crush him. 

“You’re right,” Linhardt said. “I don’t want to talk about her, or about Saint Cethleann. Not in the least. Not ever again, if I can help it.” He turned back around, safely facing his wall. “Good night.” 

Another long hesitation. Then, “Good night, Linhardt,” Caspar said, softer than he usually spoke. “Sleep tight, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

This time, his heavy footfalls did take him to the door, and back out into the broken world beyond. 

And, of course, as ever, it was only once he’d gone that Linhardt realized just how much he had really wanted him to stay. 

* 

Tomorrow came earlier than he might have liked, all grey watery daylight spilling uninvited through the windows. He’d pulled the blankets up around him after all at some point during the night, and for a moment, just one perfectly restful moment, the morning felt like any other one of the hundreds he’d greeted from this spot, just like this. His present self and past self doubled together so strongly that for a moment, he actually worried that he was late for morning lectures and Edelgard or the professor might be marching in through his door any moment to scold him. 

And then reality came flooding back in. Ah, right. War. Fun. 

He swung his legs out with a grumble -- he felt _awful_, truly, caked with ugly remnants of yesterday’s battle, in desperate need of a bath and perhaps even more pressingly, some actual food. His stomach rumbled, as though in agreement. 

He had every intention of changing his clothes and marching straight to the dining hall. Except, rather than landing on cold, unyielding stone, his feet hit something -- not soft, exactly, but softer than stone and a good deal _warmer_, too, and just as he realized he was in the process of landing on and subsequently tripping over a _body_ beside his bed, the thing sat up and started yelling at him. 

Loudly. 

“What the hell!” Caspar demanded in his most aggrieved voice, even as Linhardt pitched forward over him and hit the floor on his hands and knees. Caspar shoved his shoulder, not hard enough to disbalance him further, thankfully. “Wow, okay! Have you always been this clumsy first thing in the morning, or is this a new thing you’re trying out, huh? I’m gonna have bruises, Linhardt, new bruises, and they’re gonna be shaped like your _feet_, and how am I supposed to spin that?” 

“Oh,” Linhardt said, sounding and feeling more than a little dazed. “Were you expecting many people to see them?” He pushed himself up onto his knees, and then he just knelt there, blinking uncomprehendingly into Caspar’s flushed face. 

“Well, I mean…” Caspar screwed his face up into a pinched little grimace, the way he always did when he was cornered. It had always been cute, Linhardt supposed, but lately, the things Caspar did with his face tended to be compelling for other, more compromising reasons, and this, unfortunately, was no exception. “I don’t know!” he exclaimed, finally, exactly the way Linhardt expected him to. “Maybe?! You never know…” His features smoothed out and he managed to just look sort of nebulously put out, gazing all morosely out at him. He really was unfortunately good looking. When had that happened? He couldn’t remember when he’d first noticed. 

“I suppose you fighting types like to show off your war wounds,” he went on, blithely. “I’m sure if you spin it right, stories about an unexpected trampling would actually go over rather well.” 

“You know,” Caspar said, brightening visibly. “That’s a really good point, actually. Huh.” 

And with that settled, there was really only one thing left to ask. He folded his arms over his chest.

“What are you doing here, Caspar?” 

“Oh. Uh… yeah. That.” Caspar’s eyes dropped, tracing aimless patterns on the floor. He’d brought his own blanket and pillow, Linhardt noted, which was honestly pretty impressive preparation, coming from Caspar. It implied a few things about the sequence of events, at least. “I, well, the truth is that I just couldn’t do it! Okay? I tried, I really did. I went and washed up,” he said, indicating his own face -- now blessedly free of bloody smears -- like he expected to be praised for having cleaned himself. When Linhardt only raised his eyebrows and waited for him to continue, he actually deflated somewhat, frowning down at the floor. “I did that and then I went back to my room, I really tried to sleep. I really tried! But I just kept tossing and turning and thinking and, uh, worrying… so,” he looked up, brows knit, gazing defiantly up at him, and Linhardt’s stomach fluttered in an entirely embarrassing and inappropriate way, but that was nothing new. “So I decided I’d sleep better if I knew you weren’t all alone here, no matter what you said, so I got my things and I came over here and I slept right here, and now here I am. And it worked, too,” he added, more than a little petulantly. “I slept just fine, after that. And you were fast asleep, too, so it all worked out. I didn’t even wake you up.” 

“No, you didn’t,” Linhardt agreed. “But I rather wish you had.” 

Caspar blinked. “What?” 

“You didn’t have to sleep on the floor,” he said, reasonably, because in fact it was the most reasonable thing in the world. They’d shared beds smaller than that… though of course, they had been a bit smaller at the time, too. Ah, damn it. He felt his face flush, after all. “If you’d woken me, I could have made room, and…” 

He actually _saw_ Caspar swallow, the ball of his throat bouncing somewhat hypnotically up and down. 

“Well, I didn’t want to bug you,” he said.

“You wouldn’t have,” Linhardt shrugged. “But I suppose you’re here now, aren’t you?” 

“So…” 

Linhardt grunted as he hauled himself up onto his feet, and then he held a hand down to him. Better not to think too hard about where this conversation might take them. Live in the moment, and all. “So, it’s too early to just be awake,” he said. In fact, he still needed a bath, and he was still absolutely ravenous, but in situations like this, he supposed, one needed to prioritize carefully. He wiggled his fingers, willing Caspar to just take his hand and just let this happen, finally. It was a very long time coming. Too long to be at all reasonable. And, well, war did this to people, or so he’d read. Something about loss instilling a desire to reaffirm one’s existence as a living being through… 

Well. Companionship. He was really blushing, now, and he only had himself to blame. 

“Maybe,” Caspar said, reluctantly, blinking up at him, and then he reached up and took his hand, after all, and Linhardt cautiously let something like anticipation tingle all the way up his arm from that contact and settle deep in his core. Hm. 

And then Caspar tightened his fingers around Linhardt’s and yanked him forward, none too gently at all. Linhardt let out a little gasping yelp as he stumbled forward, completely helpless against Caspar’s strength, but of course, Caspar just caught him easily, swinging an arm around him, blushing brilliantly as he pulled him in close. 

“_Caspar,_” Linhardt complained, but he heard the breathless sort of anticipation in his own voice clear as anything. Still, he had no idea if Caspar would even recognize that sort of thing, even with him practically straddling him on the floor. 

Though, judging by the way he was blushing… 

No time to think about it. Caspar slid his arms around him and spun him about -- he really was _surprisingly_ strong. It was easy to forget, sometimes. Hell, Linhardt had been bigger than him for most of their childhood, and it was only really in the last few years, that… that… 

His thoughts fizzled out, dissolving into warm and welcome nothing as Caspar pressed his cheek against his and wrapped his arms around him, squeezing him tight. “You seem like you’re feeling a little better, this morning,” he said, maybe a little too loudly to really call it _intimate_, but they could work on that. 

“It’s more that it all hasn’t had time to sink in again, yet,” he admitted. “I really didn’t expect you to be here. Or, ah, to be doing anything like this, frankly.” He pulled back, squirming in his grip, and Caspar gave him just enough leeway to let him lean his face back and look him in the eye. An action that immediately proved to be a terrible mistake, because Caspar was looking at him like he’d never really seen him before, and he had no idea how to process that. “What are we doing?” It never hurt to ask. 

“I don’t know,” Caspar said, smiling. “I’m just kinda winging it, here? Obviously?” He’d brought his hands up over Linhardt’s back and begun rubbing these small, suggestive little circles against his shoulderblades, and… actually, it felt rather nice. 

“If you’re expecting me to take the lead, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed,” Linhardt advised him, very seriously. And then he let himself fall forward, pillowing his cheek against Caspar’s shoulder, squirming atop him in a vain effort to arrange himself in a way even remotely resembling comfortable. “You’re a terrible mattress,” he informed him. “You know this is really rather stupid, right? I have a bed right there. You are literally leaning against it, right now.” 

“Oh,” Caspar gulped. “I just, uh, hold on. I don’t think I’m ready for a bed,” he said, and then he exhaled loudly and moved his fingers up to stroke through Linhardt’s hair. That, too, was nice enough, though when he repeated the motion he couldn’t help but imagine Caspar’s relationship with the various cats in the monastery, and he turned his face into his loose fitting nightshirt and laughed. 

“Are you going to scratch me behind my ears, next?” 

“Wh -- no!” 

“Maybe rub my belly, some? I don’t know. I’ve never experienced that. Maybe it would work…” 

“I’m not going to rub your belly!” Caspar insisted. “I’m just, I don’t know, I’m trying to just, do what feels right, I guess! And I don’t know what I’m doing! And you know I don’t know what I’m doing because you know about everything I’ve _done_, which is a whole lot of _nothing_, so excuse me, mister worldly experience, if I’m a little bit nervous about this whole thing because I still don’t even know if this is _right_, okay?” 

Linhardt lifted his head and made a little humming sound of interest. “Right? What do you mean, right?” He nudged his shoulder with his chin. “If anything, I would call this inevitable, but maybe that was just my wishful thinking.” 

“You wished for this?” Caspar’s voice actually squeaked, a little, at that. Amazing. “I mean, right, as in... “ he blew out a loud breath. “You’re having a hard time, right? Everything that happened, yesterday. And before that, even. And I know that. I don’t feel it all the same way you do. I never have, I know that. And you’ve never held that against me. And I’ve never held it against you! I didn’t know any of them like you did, Linhardt. You knew _everyone._ And now a bunch of the people you knew and liked and, and maybe, you know, _liked…_” he swallowed, again, at this, Linhardt was close enough to actually hear it. “... They’re on the opposite side, in this war, and they’re not backing down, and neither are we. So, sometimes, it’s like yesterday. And there’s going to be worse things, probably, before it’s over. And so I don’t know if it’s _right_, right, to… um.” 

Caspar coughed. His heart was absolutely racing. Linhardt was close enough to feel that, too. Strangely, it made him feel better about himself. If Caspar was that nervous, well, they were in the same sort of boat, weren’t they? 

Like always. 

“You’re worried you’re taking advantage of me,” he clarified.

“Well, I mean. I guess, yeah?” 

“Leveraging my delicate emotional state to get me into bed.” 

“Now, hold on --” 

“Relying on the impetus of a terrible tragedy to hasten certain developments that, in the absence of a particularly emotional catalyst, might have taken us another decade, or, and I shudder to think of it, even longer --” 

“-- just a minute, there --” 

“No, really, I can absolutely keep going…” 

“_Linhardt,_” Caspar protested, weakly. 

“Or,” he suggested, bringing his face up parallel to Caspar’s, so close their noses nearly touched. “You could just get this over with, and kiss me.” 

“_Fine,_” Caspar said, very fiercely, indeed. His fingers dug into Linhardt’s back. “I’m gonna!”

“Are you?” Linhardt tilted his head, smiling. “Or are you just going to let me keep talking? Because there is _plenty_ more I could bring up about this situation, Caspar, really. I have literally a decade’s worth of empirical experience to draw from. I am, quite literally, my own primary source. I --” 

\-- Oh. 

Well, he thought, as Caspar smacked their faces together, exactly as clumsily as Linhardt had always imagined. It wasn’t _terrible._ In fact, once the initial shock of it wore off, they sort of settled into it, together, learning in tandem how to tilt their faces and angle their heads and, yes, remember to stop and breathe, every now and again. Caspar flattened his hands over Linhardt’s back, which felt nice, and Linhardt put his hands on either side of Caspar’s ridiculous distracting face and parted his lips against him, which felt even better, and then Caspar made this _sound_ from deep in his chest and slipped his fingers up the back of his neck to grip his hair firmly by the roots, and _that_ felt best of all.

Until, of course, they stumbled breathlessly across the next best thing. And the next.

And he thought, deliriously, as they experimented cautiously with hands and tongues and lips, deep embarrassing groaning kisses and little hesitant butterfly kisses and warm, rich kisses where they laughed into each other’s mouths and called each other idiots, if this was just how it would be, from now on. Always improving with practice. 

Of course, they’d have to survive the war. 

The thought was sour, unwelcome, and thankfully, came from very, very far away. 

* 

They did make it to the bed, eventually. 

Not for anything more daring yet than what they’d done on the floor, but it was nice to have something relatively soft to offset the fact that Caspar’s body contained precisely zero cushioning to avail himself of whatsoever. A fact which Caspar seemed oddly proud of, when Linhardt couldn’t help but point it out. Ah, well. 

Eventually too they lapsed into a comfortable sort of quiet, simply laying together, side by side. Caspar had his arms bent up behind his head, and Linhardt curled himself into the unyielding edifice that was his shoulder and let his eyes slip closed, his mouth and lips and tongue -- and cheeks, and chin, and neck -- all buzzing with newfound sensation.

“You know,” Linhardt said, and Caspar actually jerked up a bit beside him, plainly startled. 

“What?” he demanded. “I thought you were asleep!” His voice was pitched a little too high, his tone apprehensive. That was fair, Linhardt supposed. It was a vulnerable sort of moment. 

“It occurs to me that I’ve never actually said this out loud, and given what just happened, I think I probably should.” 

“Oh, no,” Caspar breathed, and Linhardt laughed, softly. 

“It’s nothing bad,” he assured him. “It’s just that I like you a lot, Caspar.” 

“Oh,” he said, dubiously. He shifted in place beside him. “Well. I, uh. I like you a lot, too. Obviously?” He blew out a stream of air, and then he laughed, too. “Yeah, obviously!” 

“And I appreciate you for always trying your best, even when you’re very far out of your depth.” 

“Uh.” He seemed less sure about that one. “Okay…” 

“And I always appreciate your stunning eloquence in delicate moments.” 

He sat up, glaring. “Are you making fun of me?” he demanded, incredulous. “Now you listen here --” 

Linhardt held up a hand. Caspar, incredibly, shut his mouth. “And, lastly, for the moment…” he sighed. “I wish we had done this a long time ago, because if we _had_, by now we’d be far past this awkward middle stage and well into whatever comes next.” He let his head drop back against the pillow, smiling up at the ceiling. “I despise awkward transitions. Actually, I despise any transitions at all.” He paused, then, his smile fading. “And yet, I still can hardly wait for this damned war to be over.” 

“I was sort of worried about it, myself,” Caspar said, hesitantly.

“What, the war ending?” 

“That’s right. I mean, what’s a guy like me supposed to do if there’s no battles to fight, huh?” 

He made a thoughtful sound, and then gave a weary sigh. “The war may end, but I somehow suspect that there will always be another battle to fight, somewhere. That’s rather the way of things, isn’t it?” 

“Maybe,” Caspar said. “But, you know, I’m not so worried about it, anymore. I mean.” He shrugged. “Whatever we decide to do, if I’ve got you with me, that’s all that matters, right?” 

“Caspar,” Linhardt said, severely. “You never let on that you were a _romantic._ However am I supposed to respond to that?” 

“Oh, okay, no,” Caspar groaned. “Listen, you just -- shut it,” he said, and then he plucked the pillow from under his head and covered his own face with it, like he was trying to smother himself. “I’m not!” he insisted, muffled into the fabric, barely audible. 

“If you insist,” Linhardt said. “But if you’ll allow me a little romance, myself, for a moment…” 

“Nope,” Caspar said, though through the pillow it sounded more like a formless grunt. Linhardt gave the pillow and presumably the face beneath it an affectionate thump. 

“Just... “ he sighed. “Survive, will you? None of this matters a bit if you don’t -- if we don’t -- survive to see it. So.” He thought of green eyes, glassy, that wonderful, mysterious, exciting spark in them gone forever, and bit his lip. His nose actually prickled, a bit, like he was going to cry. Nonsense. This was war, and there was no time for mourning. Not yet. He cleared his throat. “Just do that for me, and I promise to do the same.” 

Caspar lifted the pillow, and his face was flushed and his eyebrows knit and his mouth set like he was ready to fight a battle in truth. “I don’t think it really works like that, Linhardt,” he said. “But you know what? Sure. I promise, too. Okay? So -- don’t even worry about it. What’s out there that could even bring me down?” He raised his eyebrows, expectant. 

It was easy to think of an answer. A thousand answers. Easy to picture Lady Rhea, her human form melting and moving and changing and reshaping before his eyes. Easy to imagine creatures born from misused crest stones and strange, furtive dark mages that stole the skins of other people to advance their own agendas. 

Easy to think of their professor, standing blank faced over a saint, informing him in a voice utterly absent of emotion or even inflection that sometimes one death was necessary for the better of the many. 

“Nothing at all,” he said. He licked his lips, like he could taste the lie. “Hey, Caspar?” 

“Linhardt?” 

“Kiss me.”


End file.
